{"title":"African American \u0026 Black","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"glitter-road","title":"Glitter Road","description":"\u003cb\u003eA beautiful portrait of how joy is an act of resistance.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"My poems brought me to Oxford, Mississippi a.k.a. the velvet ditch: \/ a place you can fall into, get comfortable among confederate rebels,\" writes January Gill O'Neil in her stunning new collection, \u003ci\u003eGlitter Road\u003c\/i\u003e. The poems in this book look back at the end of a marriage, a heartbreaking loss, and a new relationship against the backdrop of a Mississippi season. O'Neil reflects on the history and legacy of Emmett Till, how his story is intertwined with her own, and wades through the incredible grief she feels for herself, her children, and the Black children who won't come home tonight. These poems reclaim the vulnerable, intimate parts of a life in transition and celebrate womanhood through awakenings, landscapes, meanders, and possibilities. She declares, with both self-love and conviction, \"I am done telling the kinder story. I am a myth of my own making.\" \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"January Gill O'Neil","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793302388778,"sku":"9781960327017","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/glitter-road-4617754.jpg?v=1762151313"},{"product_id":"trophic-cascade","title":"Trophic Cascade","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePoems about birth, death, and ecosystems of nature and power\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Colorado Book Award in Poetry (2018)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this fourth book in a series of award-winning survival narratives, Dungy writes positioned at a fulcrum, bringing a new life into the world even as her elders are passing on. In a time of massive environmental degradation, violence and abuse of power, a world in which we all must survive, these poems resonate within and beyond the scope of the human realms, delicately balancing between conflicting loci of attention. Dwelling between vibrancy and its opposite, Dungy writes in a single poem about a mother, a daughter, Smokin' Joe Frazier, brittle stars, giant boulders, and a dead blue whale. These poems are written in the face of despair to hold an impossible love and a commitment to hope. A readers companion will be availabe at wesleyan.edu\/wespress\/readerscompanions.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Camille T Dungy","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793304289322,"sku":"9780819578563","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/trophic-cascade-7806591.jpg?v=1762151254"},{"product_id":"suck-on-the-marrow","title":"Suck on the Marrow","description":"\u003cp\u003e**Winner of the American Book Award\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e**Silver Medalist for the California Book Award\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSuck on the Marrow\u003c\/i\u003e is a historical narrative, revolving around six main characters and set in mid-19th century Virginia and Philadelphia. The book traces the experiences of fugitive slaves, kidnapped Northern-born blacks, and free people of color, exploring the interdependence between plantation life and life in Northern and Southern American towns and illuminating the connections between the successes and difficulties of a wide range of Americans, free and slave, black and white, Northern and Southern. This neo-slave narrative treats the truths of lives touched by slavery with reverence but is not afraid to question the ways the old stories have too often been told. In addition to creating new stories, \u003ci\u003eSuck on the Marrow\u003c\/i\u003e develops new ways of telling those tales.","brand":"Camille T Dungy","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793304879146,"sku":"9781597094689","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/suck-on-the-marrow-1993816.jpg?v=1762151254"},{"product_id":"america-a-love-story","title":"America, a Love Story","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNew poems on love, family, and art from the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmerica, A Love Story\u003c\/i\u003e is Camille T. Dungy's powerful testament to living and loving as a Black woman and mother in today's America, and her first book of poetry in almost a decade. Piercingly honest and deeply compassionate, this poetry moves through the mounting griefs of contemporary American life with unwavering clarity. The book is part indictment, part celebration--full of gratitude, fear, resistance, and hope. Dungy explores intimacy, parenting, racism, history, and the natural world with clarity and depth. Some poems reflect on the past; others respond to the work of contemporary Black artists. Many are formally playful, including a series of 700-character poems inspired by the 700 hours of sleep a mother loses in her child's first year. Gorgeous, bright, and bold, these poems speak from the edges--between mother and child, body and earth, self and country. They hold tension and tenderness in equal measure, creating a space for love amidst uncertainty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[sample poem]\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTo enter our own empty house\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eShe was seven when we stopped\u003cbr\u003eusing keys. One less thing to lose.\u003cbr\u003eNow we punch a combination.\u003cbr\u003eEasy, but hopefully not so easy\u003cbr\u003ea stranger could guess. This is where\u003cbr\u003eI should stop. They are bound\u003cbr\u003eto be angry, my beloveds. I am\u003cbr\u003egiving away all our secrets again.\u003cbr\u003eVulnerability is the root of much fury.\u003cbr\u003e =\u003cbr\u003eI was small. A stone in the yard\u003cbr\u003ehid a metal case with a lid\u003cbr\u003ethat slid like a matchbox top\u003cbr\u003eto reveal our key. Lifting that rock\u003cbr\u003eI thought of bashing someone's head. \u003cbr\u003eI thought of harm lurking, dressed\u003cbr\u003ein the body of some stranger. \u003cbr\u003e =\u003cbr\u003eSometimes, I wrestle my daughter.\u003cbr\u003eI make her tiny body work itself\u003cbr\u003eout from under the weight I make \u003cbr\u003eof my own. In this way I try \u003cbr\u003eto teach her how it feels to break free.\u003ci\u003eAmerica, A Love Story\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Camille T Dungy","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793305075754,"sku":"9780819502261","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/america-a-love-story-3763251.jpg?v=1762151254"},{"product_id":"thomas-and-beulah","title":"Thomas and Beulah","description":"A collection of poetry by Rita Dove.","brand":"Rita Dove","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793306353706,"sku":"9780887480218","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/thomas-and-beulah-7366585.jpg?v=1762151197"},{"product_id":"playlist-for-the-apocalypse-poems","title":"Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn her first volume of new poems in twelve years, Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America's, and the world's, experiments in democracy. Whether depicting the first Jewish ghetto in sixteenth-century Venice or the contemporary efforts of Black Lives Matter, a girls' night clubbing in the shadow of World War II or the doomed nobility of Muhammad Ali's conscious objector stance, this extraordinary poet never fails to connect history's grand exploits to the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMeticulously orchestrated and musical in its forms, \u003cem\u003ePlaylist for the Apocalypse\u003c\/em\u003e collects a dazzling array of voices: an elevator operator simmers with resentment, an octogenarian dances an exuberant mambo, a spring cricket philosophizes with mordant humor on hip hop, critics, and Valentine's Day. Calamity turns all too personal in the book's final section, \"Little Book of Woe,\" which charts a journey from terror to hope as Dove learns to cope with debilitating chronic illness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt turns audaciously playful and grave, alternating poignant meditations on mortality and acerbic observations of injustice, \u003cem\u003ePlaylist for the Apocalypse\u003c\/em\u003e takes us from the smallest moments of redemption to catastrophic failures of the human soul. Listen up, the poet says, speaking truth to power; what you'll hear in return is \"a lifetime of song.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rita Dove","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793306550314,"sku":"9781324050438","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/playlist-for-the-apocalypse-poems-8684852.jpg?v=1762151197"},{"product_id":"nebraska-poems","title":"Nebraska: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eKwame Dawes is not a native Nebraskan. Born in Ghana, he later moved to Jamaica, where he spent most of his childhood and early adulthood. In 1992 he relocated to the United States and eventually found himself an American living in Lincoln, Nebraska. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNebraska\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, this beautiful and evocative collection of poems, Dawes explores a theme constant in his work--the intersection of memory, home, and artistic invention. The poems, set against the backdrop of Nebraska's discrete cycle of seasons, are meditative even as they search for a sense of place in a new landscape. While he shovels snow or walks in the bitter cold to his car, he is engulfed with memories of Kingston, yet when he travels, he finds himself longing for the open space of the plains and the first snowfall.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWith a strong sense of place and haunting memories, Dawes grapples with life in Nebraska as a transplant.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Kwame Dawes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793306615850,"sku":"9781496221230","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/nebraska-poems-2351376.jpg?v=1762151197"},{"product_id":"collected-poems-1974-2004","title":"Collected Poems: 1974-2004","description":"\u003cp\u003eRita Dove's \u003cem\u003eCollected Poems 1974-2004\u003c\/em\u003e showcases the wide-ranging diversity that earned her a Pulitzer Prize, the position of U.S. poet laureate, a National Humanities Medal, and a National Medal of Art. Gathering thirty years and seven books, this volume compiles Dove's fresh reflections on adolescence in \u003cem\u003eThe Yellow House on the Corner\u003c\/em\u003e and her irreverent musings in \u003cem\u003eMuseum\u003c\/em\u003e. She sets the moving love story of \u003cem\u003eThomas and Beulah\u003c\/em\u003e against the backdrop of war, industrialization, and the civil right struggles. The multifaceted gems of \u003cem\u003eGrace Notes\u003c\/em\u003e, the exquisite reinvention of Greek myth in the sonnets of \u003cem\u003eMother Love\u003c\/em\u003e, the troubling rapids of recent history in \u003cem\u003eOn the Bus with Rosa Parks\u003c\/em\u003e, and the homage to America's kaleidoscopic cultural heritage in \u003cem\u003eAmerican Smooth\u003c\/em\u003e all celebrate Dove's mastery of narrative context with lyrical finesse. With the \"precise, singing lines\" for which the \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e praised her, Dove \"has created fresh configurations of the traditional and the experimental\" (\u003cem\u003ePoetry\u003c\/em\u003e magazine).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rita Dove","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793306681386,"sku":"9780393354935","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/collected-poems-1974-2004-1318743.jpg?v=1762151197"},{"product_id":"american-smooth-poems","title":"American Smooth: Poems","description":"An occasion to celebrate: a new collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former poet laureate; her first since \u003cem\u003eOn the Bus with Rosa Parks\u003c\/em\u003e. With the grace of an Astaire, Rita Dove's magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage; from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I whose music conquered Europe before the Allied advance. Like the ballroom-dancing couple of the title poem, smiling and making the difficult seem effortless, Dove explores the shifting surfaces between perception and intimation.","brand":"Rita Dove","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793306812458,"sku":"9780393327441","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/american-smooth-poems-5091182.jpg?v=1762151195"},{"product_id":"mother-love-poems-norton-pbk","title":"Mother Love: Poems (Norton Pbk)","description":"Marking the end of Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove's two-year term as Poet Laureate of the United States, this new collection again confirms her extraordinary power and grace as a poet. Mother Love calls upon the ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone to examine the tenacity of love between mother and daughter, two tumblers locked in an eternal somersault: each mother a daughter; each daughter a potential mother.","brand":"Rita Dove","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793306877994,"sku":"9780393314441","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/mother-love-poems-norton-pbk-8903255.jpg?v=1762151195"},{"product_id":"duppy-conqueror-new-and-selected-poems","title":"Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems","description":"\"The miracle of empathy,\" Kwame Dawes once said in an interview, \"is the ultimate aim of my writing.\"","brand":"Kwame Dawes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793307009066,"sku":"9781556594236","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/duppy-conqueror-new-and-selected-poems-8645511.jpg?v=1762151196"},{"product_id":"rice","title":"Rice","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eRice\u003c\/i\u003e, her second volume of poetry, Nikky Finney explores the complexity of rice as central to the culture, economy, and mystique of the coastal South Carolina region where she was born and raised. The prized Carolina Gold rice paradoxically made South Carolina one of the most oppressive states for slaves and also created the remarkable Gullah culture on the coastal islands. The poems in \u003ci\u003eRice\u003c\/i\u003e compose a profound and unflinching journey connecting family and the paradoxes of American history, from the tragic times when African slaves disembarked on the South Carolina coast to the triumphant day when Judge Ernest A. Finney Jr., Nikky's father, was sworn in as South Carolina's first African American chief justice. Images from the Finney family archive illustrate and punctuate this collection. \u003ci\u003eRice\u003c\/i\u003e showcases Finney's hungry intellect, her regional awareness and pride, and her sensitivity to how cultures are built and threatened.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nikky Finney","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793307074602,"sku":"9780810152328","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/rice-6681578.jpg?v=1762151196"},{"product_id":"dont-call-us-dead-poems","title":"Don't Call Us Dead: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the National Book Award for Poetry\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[Smith's] poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy.\"--\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAward-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. \u003ci\u003eDon't Call Us Dead\u003c\/i\u003e opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality--the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood--and a diagnosis of HIV positive. \"Some of us are killed \/ in pieces,\" Smith writes, \"some of us all at once.\" \u003ci\u003eDon't Call Us Dead\u003c\/i\u003e is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--\"Dear White America\"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.","brand":"Danez Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793307664426,"sku":"9781555977856","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/dont-call-us-dead-poems-2111030.jpg?v=1762151195"},{"product_id":"crown-aint-worth-much","title":"Crown Ain't Worth Much","description":"2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award - Poetry Honorable Mention \u003cbr\u003e2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award - Grand Prize Short List \u003cbr\u003e2017 Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award Nominee \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Crown Ain't Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib's first full-length collection, is a sharp and vulnerable portrayal of city life in the United States. A regular columnist for MTV.com, Abdurraqib brings his interest in pop culture to these poems, analyzing race, gender, family, and the love that finally holds us together even as it threatens to break us. Terrance Hayes writes that Abdurraqib \"bridges the bravado and bling of praise with the blood and tears of elegy.\" The poems in this collection are challenging and accessible at once, as they seek to render real human voices in moments of tragedy and celebration.","brand":"Hanif Abdurraqib","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793307729962,"sku":"9781943735044","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/crown-aint-worth-much-5216140.jpg?v=1762151196"},{"product_id":"homie-poems","title":"Homie: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY\u003cbr\u003eFINALIST FOR THE 2021 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR POETRY \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDanez Smith is our president \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eHomie\u003c\/i\u003e is Danez Smith's magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith's close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family--blood and chosen--arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, \u003ci\u003eHomie \u003c\/i\u003eis the exuberant new book written for Danez and for Danez's friends and for you and for yours.","brand":"Danez Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793307795498,"sku":"9781644450109","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/homie-poems-5064938.jpg?v=1762151134"},{"product_id":"fortune-for-your-disaster","title":"Fortune for Your Disaster","description":"In his much-anticipated follow-up to \u003cem\u003eThe Crown Ain't Worth Much\u003c\/em\u003e, poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib has written a book of poems about how one rebuilds oneself after a heartbreak, the kind that renders them a different version of themselves than the one they knew. It's a book about a mother's death, and admitting that Michael Jordan pushed off, about forgiveness, and how none of the author's black friends wanted to listen to \"Don't Stop Believin'.\" It's about wrestling with histories, personal and shared. Abdurraqib uses touchstones from the world outside--from Marvin Gaye to Nikola Tesla to his neighbor's dogs--to create a mirror, inside of which every angle presents a new possibility.","brand":"Hanif Abdurraqib","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793307861034,"sku":"9781947793439","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/fortune-for-your-disaster-5808369.jpg?v=1762151134"},{"product_id":"insert-boy","title":"[insert] boy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner, Kate Tufts Discovery Award, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner, John C Zacharis Award 2016 from Ploughshares\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner, Lambda Literary Award, Gay Poetry, 2015\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFinalist, Norma Farber First Book Award, Poetry Society of America, 2015\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFinalist, Debulitzer, 2015\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChosen by Don Share for \u003cem\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/em\u003e's Best Poetry Books, 2014\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDanez Smith's writing is not safe. How can one's writing be safe when their life is constantly in danger? In their debut poetry collection [insert] boy, Smith calls for a world where black boys and men are worshipped instead of feared, a world in which they live long enough to \"feel the settling of joints, the experience of bones\" to \"die ninety \u0026amp; beautiful \/ \u0026amp; the causes more normal.\" In [insert] boy, Smith writes intimately about their complex relationship to multiple forms of violence. Smith discusses domestic abuse in their family, the physical and emotional effects of rape, and being the target of racist and homophobic language. All of these experiences are based on their interactions with other men. They also includes a series of poems about their many attempts at healing, a constant process which unfolds throughout the book. The body is present on almost every page-particularly the mouth, knees, and hands. These three body parts often appear together in the same poem. In \"King the Color of Space, Tower of Molasses \u0026amp; Marrow,\" Smith writes, \"I want to kiss you. Not on your mouth, but on your most \/ secret scars, your ashy black \u0026amp; journeyed knees, \/\/ your ring finger, the trigger finger, those hands \/ the world fears so much.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-H.Melt for Lambda Literary Review\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Danez Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793308123178,"sku":"9781936919284","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/insert-boy-5608938.jpg?v=1762151134"},{"product_id":"black-movie","title":"Black Movie","description":"2014 Button Poetry Prize Winner \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"These harrowing poems make montage, make mirrors, make elegiac biopic, make 'a dope ass trailer with a hundred black children \/ smiling into the camera \u0026amp; the last shot is the wide mouth of a pistol.' That's no spoiler alert, but rather, Smith's way-saying \u0026amp; laying it beautifully bare. A way of desensitizing the reader from his own defenses each time this long, black movie repeats.\"-Marcus Wicker \"Danez Smith's BLACK MOVIE is a cinematic tour-de-force that lets poetry vie with film for the honor of which medium can most effectively articulate the experience of Black America.\"-Rain Taxi","brand":"Danez Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793308254250,"sku":"9781943735006","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/black-movie-6212330.jpg?v=1762151134"},{"product_id":"heart-first-into-this-ruin-the-complete-american-sonnets","title":"Heart First Into This Ruin: The Complete American Sonnets","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Fantastically entertaining and deeply engaging...potent distillations of creative rage, social critique, and subversive wit.\"--\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Terrifying and fearlessly inventive.\"--\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe first complete collection of Wanda Coleman's original and inventive sonnets. Long regarded as among her finest work, these one hundred poems give voice to loving passions, social outrage, and hard-earned wisdom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWanda Coleman was a beat-up, broke Black woman who wrote with anger, humor, and ruthless intelligence: \"to know, i must survive myself,\" she wrote in \"American Sonnet 7.\" A poet of the people, she created the experimental \"American Sonnet\" form and published them between 1986 and 2001. The form inspired countless others, from Terrance Hayes to Billy Collins. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawn from life's particulars, Coleman's art is timeless and universal. In \"American Sonnet 61\" she writes: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ereaching down into my griot bag \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eof womanish wisdom and wily \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003esocial commentary, i come up with bricks \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ewith which to either reconstruct \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ethe past or deconstruct a head.... \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003efrom the infinite alphabet of afroblues \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eintertwinings, i cull apocalyptic visions \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e(the details and lovers entirely real) \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eand articulate my voyage beyond that \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003epoint where self disappears \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese one hundred sonnets--borne from influences as diverse as Huey P. Newton and Herman Melville, Amiri Baraka and Robert Duncan--tell Coleman's own tale, as well as the story of Black and white America. From \"American Sonnet 2\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003etowards the cruel attentions of violent opiates \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eas towards the fatal fickleness of artistic rain \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003etowards the locusts of social impotence itself \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ei see myself thrown heart first into this ruin \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003enot for any crime \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ebut being \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is a collection of electrifying truth that only an artist such as Wanda Coleman can deliver. ","brand":"Wanda Coleman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793308713002,"sku":"9781574232530","price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/heart-first-into-this-ruin-the-complete-american-sonnets-4058111.jpg?v=1762151134"},{"product_id":"ostinato-vamps-poems","title":"Ostinato Vamps: Poems","description":"\u003ci\u003eOstinato Vamps\u003c\/i\u003e is Wanda Coleman's first book of poetry since the demise of her longtime publisher, Black Sparrow Press. It continues and enlarges the traits that have been her hallmark for more than three decades: a fierce adherence to the truth and a language so musical one can almost hear the blues line underneath her stanzas. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLinguistically daring, lyrically breathtaking, stylistically bold, these poems both explore familiar territory and shatter stereotypes. Life is difficult, often unfair, but it belongs to the living, as Coleman reminds us in no uncertain terms. Racing between an earthy eroticism and fatalistic despair, filled with humor and tragedy, these poems are alive. They breathe. They challenge us even as they reward us for seeking the truth.","brand":"Wanda Coleman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793309040682,"sku":"9780822958338","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/ostinato-vamps-poems-1805550.jpg?v=1762151133"},{"product_id":"prelude-to-bruise","title":"Prelude to Bruise","description":"\u003cb\u003ePraise for Saeed Jones: \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Jones is the kind of writer who's more than wanted: he's desperately needed.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eFlavorWire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This book leaves your body transformed in a way that poetry should.\" \u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eElevenEleven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"I get shout-happy when I read these poems; they are the gospel; they are the good news of the sustaining power of imagination, tenderness, and outright joy.\"\u003cb\u003e--D. A. Powell\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Prelude to Bruise works its tempestuous mojo just under the skin, wreaking a sweet havoc and rearranging the pulse. These poems don't dole out mercy. Mr. Jones undoubtedly dipped his pen in fierce before crafting these stanzas that rock like backslap. Straighten your skirt, children. The doors of the church are open.\"\u003cb\u003e--Patricia Smith\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"It's a big book, a major book. A game-changer. Dazzling, brutal, real. Not just brilliant, caustic, and impassioned but a work that brings history--in which the personal and political are inter-constitutive--to the immediate moment. Jones takes a reader deep into lived experience, into a charged world divided among unstable yet entrenched lines: racial, gendered, political, sexual, familial. Here we absorb each quiet resistance, each whoop of joy, a knowledge of violence and of desire, an unbearable ache\/loss\/yearning. This is not just a 'new voice' but a new song, a new way of singing, a new music made of deep grief's wildfire, of burning intelligence and of all-feeling heart, scorched and seared. In a poem, Jones says, 'Boy's body is a song only he can hear.' But now that we have this book, we can all hear it. And it's unforgettable.\"\u003cb\u003e--Brenda Shaughnessy\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Inside each hunger, each desire, speaks the voice of a boy that admits 'I've always wanted to be dangerous.' This is not a threat but a promise to break away from the affliction of silence, to make audible the stories that trouble the dimensions of masculinity and discomfort the polite conversations about race. With impressive grace, Saeed Jones situates the queer black body at the center, where his visibility and vulnerability nurture emotional strength and the irrepressible energy to claim those spaces that were once denied or withheld from him. Prelude to a Bruise is a daring debut.\"\u003cb\u003e--Rigoberto González\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \"Sleeping Arrangement\" \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTake your hand out\u003cbr\u003efrom under my pillow. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAnd take your sheets with you.\u003cbr\u003eDrag them under. Make pretend ghosts. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eI can't have you rattling the bed springs\u003cbr\u003eso keep still, keep quiet. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMistake yourself for shadows.\u003cbr\u003eLearn the lullabies of lint. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSaeed Jones \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eworks as the editor of BuzzfeedLGBT.","brand":"Saeed Jones","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793309794346,"sku":"9781566893749","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/prelude-to-bruise-7992373.jpg?v=1762151133"},{"product_id":"prime-poetry-conversation","title":"Prime: Poetry \u0026 Conversation","description":"Prime: Poetry \u0026amp; Conversation is a first-of-its-kind document of poetry and ongoing conversation in the black, queer literary community, a necessity as the historically well-indexed canon of white queer writers continues to grow with little diversity. Sparked into existence by a Best American Poetry blog from Jericho Brown in which he singled out some of the most exciting young, black, and gay men writing today, Prime features poems by and dialogue between poets Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Saeed Jones, Rickey Laurentiis, Phillip B. Williams, and L. Lamar Wilson. Jericho Brown provides the introduction for this collection, which is proudly published by Sibling Rivalry Press.","brand":"Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Saeed Jones, Phillip B Williams","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793310122026,"sku":"9781937420734","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/prime-poetry-conversation-2566065.jpg?v=1762151068"},{"product_id":"alive-at-the-end-of-the-world","title":"Alive at the End of the World","description":"\u003cb\u003ePierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author of \u003ci\u003ePrelude to Bruise\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHow We Fight for Our Lives\u003c\/i\u003e confronts our everyday apocalypses.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing from memoir, fiction, and persona, Jones confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy with a finely tuned poetic ear, identifying moments that seem routine even as they open chasms of hurt. Viewing himself as an unreliable narrator, Jones looks outward to understand what's within, bringing forth cultural icons like Little Richard, Paul Mooney, Aretha Franklin and Diahann Carroll to illuminate how long and how perilously we've been living on top of fault lines. As these poems seek ways to love and survive through America's existential threats, Jones ushers his readers toward the realization that the end of the world is already here-and the apocalypse is a state of being.","brand":"Saeed Jones","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793311301674,"sku":"9781566896511","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/alive-at-the-end-of-the-world-3794260.jpg?v=1762151067"},{"product_id":"apologies-that-never-came","title":"Apologies That Never Came","description":"\u003cb\u003eSelf-made poet and social media sensation Pierre Jeanty has triumphed once again with his most recent collection, \u003ci\u003eApologies That Never Came\u003c\/i\u003e. From words that never left your mouth to feelings you held on to, these words explore an unspoken space in heartbreak and pain, providing solace to the wounded soul. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith massive social media followings and a loyal fan base, Jeanty is poised for great success for his sixth poetry collection entitled \u003ci\u003eApologies That Never Came\u003c\/i\u003e. In this series of prose and poetry, both the words and sentiment are simple, uninterrupted by excess flair or complexity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eApologies That Never Came \u003c\/i\u003edissects the agony of heartbreak and loss through the unexpressed words and feelings; what is left over at the end. While his poems and prose delve into pain, they ultimately transcend that heartbreak, awakening everyone's preexisting strength and capacity for growth. Much like in his previous collections, Jeanty has successfully created a tool for unity and healing out of the torment of his experiences.","brand":"Pierre Alex Jeanty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793311760426,"sku":"9781524850647","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/apologies-that-never-came-1590954.jpg?v=1762151067"},{"product_id":"her-iii","title":"Her III","description":"\u003cb\u003eSelf-made poet and social media sensation Pierre Alex Jeanty provides the final piece to his stunning 3-book collection, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eHER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe much-anticipated final piece in the \u003ci\u003eHER\u003c\/i\u003e series, \u003ci\u003eHER III\u003c\/i\u003e is a collection of poetry written for women of all ages in an attempt to capture true resilience. Each poem touches on the trials and tribulations of relationships, the intricate and intimate conversations, the questions that were ignored, and the emotions that were shunned. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs with the first two books in Jeanty's series, this third collection aims to turn insecurities into confidence, heartbreak into healing, and self-doubt into determination. For all those on a journey to find self-love and acceptance, \u003ci\u003eHER III\u003c\/i\u003e is reassuring, empowering, reflective, and affirming - a beautiful ode to the power within us.","brand":"Pierre Alex Jeanty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793311891498,"sku":"9781524880644","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/her-iii-1404222.jpg?v=1762151067"},{"product_id":"what-i-shouldve-texted","title":"What I Should've Texted","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat I Should've Texted \u003c\/i\u003eis a collection of words that have been buried. A spill of hidden thoughts that never made their way out. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis collection from poet Pierre Alex Jeanty is a beautiful expression of the unspoken things that needed to be said and must leave our lips as we attempt to close chapters that we were forced to abandon. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Whether you are looking for closure from past heartbreaks or trying to make sense of your feelings and emotions during a current one, \u003ci\u003eWhat I Should've Texted\u003c\/i\u003e will help you give life to the thoughts that never got a chance to escape.","brand":"Pierre Alex Jeanty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793312088106,"sku":"9781524880651","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/what-i-shouldve-texted-1749465.jpg?v=1762151008"},{"product_id":"her","title":"Her","description":"\u003cp\u003eWomen are misunderstood. I've heard it many times, so have you. Fewer things are more frustrating than voicing concerns and not truly being heard. Or trying to express yourself, but not finding the right words.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"HER\" is collection of poems that has become an inspiration for many women and a guide for many men. Women are praising this book because EVERY woman can see a reflection of herself and her heart on these pages. Originally written from the perspective of a man trying to help other men get a clue, this short and simple read has become a go-to for the communication ladies seek. The kind you post and others love because it rings true!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhether you are trying to communicate with your partner, working on your self-love, trying to find closure to let go, or just need a boost of inspiration, there's a quote that will speak to you.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pierre Alex Jeanty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793312219178,"sku":"9780997426588","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/her-2356626.jpg?v=1762151008"},{"product_id":"him","title":"Him","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe best-selling poet of \u003cem\u003eHER \u0026amp; HER Vol. 2\u003c\/em\u003e returns with a different voice, on a different path, but with the same mission.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHIM is a collection of \"he-poetry\" in a world of \"she-poems\" that tends to only refer to him when speaking ill. Through poetry and prose, Pierre wears his heart on paper and pens a tribute to men; their undelivered feelings, unrecognized strength, their loud silence, and their neglected complaints. HIM celebrates good men, their love, their worth, and their beauty. The characteristics that often fall into the shadows are now brought to life. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pierre Alex Jeanty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793312284714,"sku":"9781949191004","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/him-5399542.jpg?v=1762151007"},{"product_id":"to-the-women-i-once-loved","title":"To The Women I Once Loved","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"To The Women I Once Loved\" is a reflection of a poet's heart, his deepest inner feelings towards past relationships and how they contributed to the man he has become. Each piece brings consciousness to parts of a woman that ought to be glorified, qualities men sometimes neglect in relationships; while making both men and women aware that who they become has a direct correlation with who they've been with. Pierre allows readers to see where he missed it before in a way that is uplifting not only to the reader but also the women of his past. This literary piece is filled with hope and will salivate the soul of those waiting on love.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pierre Alex Jeanty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793312415786,"sku":"9780986255632","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/to-the-women-i-once-loved-9852929.jpg?v=1762151007"},{"product_id":"bone","title":"Bone","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"yrsa daley-ward's \u003ci\u003ebone \u003c\/i\u003eis a symphony of breaking and mending. . . . she lays her hands on the pulse of the thing. . . . an expert storyteller. of the rarest. and purest kind.\" --nayyirah waheed, author of \u003ci\u003esalt.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom the celebrated poet Yrsa Daley-Ward, a poignant collection of poems about the heart, life, and the inner self.  \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eForeword by Kiese Laymon, author of \u003ci\u003eHeavy: An American Memoir\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBone. Visceral. Close to. Stark. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward's collection \u003ci\u003ebone\u003c\/i\u003e are exactly that: reflections on a particular life honed to their essence--so clear and pared-down, they become universal. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society's expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward's \u003ci\u003ebone\u003c\/i\u003e resonates to the core of what it means to be human. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003e\"You will come away bruised. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eYou will come away bruised\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ebut this will give you poetry.\" \u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Yrsa Daley-Ward","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793316511786,"sku":"9780143132615","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/bone-8342015.jpg?v=1762150884"},{"product_id":"dien-cai-dau","title":"Dien Cai Dau","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePoetry that precisely conjures images of the war in Vietnam by an award-winning author.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793316741162,"sku":"9780819511645","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/dien-cai-dau-1677255.jpg?v=1762150884"},{"product_id":"night-animals","title":"Night Animals","description":"The poems in \u003ci\u003eNight Animals\u003c\/i\u003e, by Yusef Komunyakaa, climb so deeply into the being of various beasts, from cricket to leopard to snowy owl, that we read them with an uncanny shiver of recognition. Without ever fully abandoning his human skin, Komunyakaa inhabits both the outer and inner lives of these creatures. The images are a brilliant match for the poems, each of Rachel Bliss's surreal animals populate a realm somewhere between our two species--birds with teeth, men with antlers, a duck wearing suspenders. Both image and word are dense and dark, intensely focused around a kind of hunger. The poet has been startling us with his rich, disturbing, and important poems for many years. \u003ci\u003eNight Animals\u003c\/i\u003e extends Yusef Komunyakaa's remarkable oeuvre.","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793316937770,"sku":"9781946448583","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/night-animals-7872830.jpg?v=1762150883"},{"product_id":"chameleon-couch-poems","title":"Chameleon Couch: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e Best Poetry Book of 2011 Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn intimate collection from one of America's most important poets\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe latest collection from one of our preeminent poets, \u003ci\u003eThe Chameleon Couch \u003c\/i\u003eis also one of Yusef Komunyakaa's most personal to date. As in his breakthrough work, \u003ci\u003eCopacetic\u003c\/i\u003e, Komunyakaa writes again of music as muse--from a blues club in the East Village to the shakuhachi of Basho. Beginning with \"Canticle,\" this varied new collection often returns to the idea of poem as hymn, ethereal and haunting, as Komunyakaa reveals glimpses of memory, myth, and violence. With contemplations that spring up along walks or memories conjured by the rhythms of New York, Komunyakaa pays tribute more than ever before to those who came before him. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book moves seamlessly across cultural and historical boundaries, evoking Komunyakaa's capacity for cultural excavation, through artifact and place. \u003ci\u003eThe Chameleon Couch \u003c\/i\u003ebegins in and never fully leaves the present--an urban modernity framed, brilliantly, in pastoral-minded verse. The poems seek the cracks beneath the landscape, whether New York or Ghana or Poland, finding in each elements of wisdom or unexpected beauty. The collection is sensually, beautifully relaxed in rhetoric; in poems like \"Cape Coast Castle,\" Komunyakaa reminds us of his gift for combining the personal with the universal, one moment addressing a lover, the next moving the focus outward, until both poet and reader are implicated in the book's startling world.","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793317003306,"sku":"9780374533144","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/chameleon-couch-poems-3045385.jpg?v=1762150883"},{"product_id":"everyday-mojo-songs-of-earth-new-and-selected-poems-2001-2021","title":"Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2021","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNew and selected poems from the great Pulitzer Prize-winning poet \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThese songs run along dirt roads\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u0026amp; highways, crisscross lonely seas\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u0026amp; scale mountains, traverse skies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u0026amp; underworlds of neon honkytonk, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWherever blues dare to travel.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eEveryday Mojo Songs of Earth \u003c\/i\u003ebrings together selected poems from the past twenty years of Yusef Komunyakaa's work, as well as new poems from the Pulitzer Prize winner. Komunyakaa's masterful, concise verse conjures arresting images of peace and war, the natural power of the earth and of love, his childhood in the American South and his service in Vietnam, the ugly violence of racism in America, and the meaning of power and morality. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe new poems in this collection add a new refrain to the jazz-inflected rhythms of one of our \"most significant and individual voices\" (David Wojahn, \u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003c\/i\u003e). Komunyakaa writes of a young man fashioning a slingshot, workers who \"honor the Earth by opening shine \/ inside the soil,\" and the sounds of a saxophone filling a dim lounge in New Jersey. As April Bernard wrote in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \"He refuses to be trivial; and he even dares beauty.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Probably my favorite living poet. No one else taught me more about how important it was to think about how words make people feel. It's not enough for people to know something is true. They have to feel it's true.\" --Ta-Nehisi Coates, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Style Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793317068842,"sku":"9780374604851","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/everyday-mojo-songs-of-earth-new-and-selected-poems-2001-2021-9220696.jpg?v=1762150884"},{"product_id":"warhorses","title":"Warhorses","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWarhorses \u003c\/i\u003eis the haunting, electric work of a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who never ceases to challenge and delight his readers.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis powerful collection of Yusef Komunyakaa's poetry delves, with his characteristic allusiveness, intelligence, and intensity, into an age of war and conflict, both global and internal, racial and sexual. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Sweetheart, was I talking war in my sleep \/ again?\" he asks, and the question is hardly moot: \"Sometimes I hold you like Achilles' \/ shield,\" and indeed all relationships, in this telling, are sites of violence and battle. His line is longer and looser than in \u003ci\u003eTaboo \u003c\/i\u003eor \u003ci\u003eTalking Dirty to the Gods\u003c\/i\u003e, and in long poems like \"Autobiography of My Alter Ego\" he sounds almost breathless, an exhausted but desperate prophet. With the leaps and improvisational flourishes of a jazz soloist, Komunyakaa imagines \"the old masters of Shock \u0026amp; Awe\" daydreaming of \"lovely Penelope \/ like a trophy.\"","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793317134378,"sku":"9780374531911","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/warhorses-8656959.jpg?v=1762150883"},{"product_id":"emperor-of-water-clocks","title":"Emperor of Water Clocks","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe wildly enchanting new collection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"If I am not Ulysses, I am \/ his dear, ruthless half brother.\" So announces Yusef Komunyakaa early in his lush new collection, \u003ci\u003eThe Emperor of Water Clocks\u003c\/i\u003e. And Ulysses (or his half brother) is but one of the characters Komunyakaa conjures over the course of this densely lyrical book. Here his speaker observes a doomed court jester; here another recalls Napoleon as the emperor \"tells the doctor to cut out his heart \/ \u0026amp; send it to the empress, Marie-Louise\"; and here he is just a man, reflecting on why he'd \"rather die a poet \/ than a warrior.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough these mutations and migrations and permutations and peregrinations, there are constants: Komunyakaa's jazz-inflected rhythms, his effortlessly surreal images, his celebration of natural beauty and of love. There is also his insistent inquiry into the structures and struggles of power: not only, say, of king against jester but of man against his own desire, and of the present against the pernicious influence of the past. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAnother brilliant collection from the man David Wojahn has called one of our \"most significant and individual voices,\" \u003ci\u003eThe Emperor of Water Clocks \u003c\/i\u003edelights, challenges, and satisfies.","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793317199914,"sku":"9780374536572","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/emperor-of-water-clocks-2101362.jpg?v=1762150883"},{"product_id":"talking-dirty-to-the-gods-poems","title":"Talking Dirty to the Gods: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA daredevil poetic achievement from a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Yusef Komunyakaa's \u003ci\u003eTalking Dirty to the Gods\u003c\/i\u003e was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e . . . A god isn't worth\u003cbr\u003eA drop of water in the hell of his good \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eImagination, if we can't curse \u003cbr\u003eSunsets \u0026amp; threaten to forsake him\u003cbr\u003eIn his storehouse of belladonna, \u003cbr\u003eTiger hornets, \u0026amp; snakebites.\u003cbr\u003e --from \"Meditations in a Swine Yard\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNo turn in any life cycle is taboo as Yusef Komunyakaa examines the primal rituals shared by insects, animals, human beings, and deities in \u003ci\u003eTalking Dirty to the Gods\u003c\/i\u003e. From \"Hearsay\" to \"Heresy,\" these 132 poems, each consisting of four quatrains, are framed by innuendo and lively satire. Komunyakaa looks to nature and configures his own paradigm, in which an event as commonplace as the jewel wasp laying an egg in a cockroach becomes every bit as grand as Zeus's infidelity. The formally rigorous collection is itself a design for a systematic cosmos, a world compressed but abundant in surprise and delight.","brand":"Yusef Komunyakaa","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793317265450,"sku":"9780374527938","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/talking-dirty-to-the-gods-poems-7564889.jpg?v=1762150882"},{"product_id":"fear-less-poetry-in-perilous-times","title":"Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eDrawing on deep passion and personal experience, former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith demystifies the art form that has too often been mischaracterized as \"inaccessible,\" \"irrelevant,\" or \"intimidating.\" She argues that poetry is rooted in fundamentally human qualities innate to our capacities to love, dream, question, and cultivate community. Lifting the veil on her own creative process, Smith shows us how reading and writing poetry allows us to better confront life's many uncertainties and losses, build camaraderie with strangers, and understand ourselves more fully. In six insightful chapters, she grounds readers in the technical elements of the craft and provides close readings of the works of contemporary poets such as Joy Harjo, Danez Smith, and Francisco Márquez, alongside classic poems by Dickinson, Keats, Millay, and others. By reimaging and reexamining the age-old art form, \u003cem\u003eFear Less\u003c\/em\u003e is a warm invitation to find meaning, consolation, and hope through poetry for poetry fans and newcomers to the art form.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tracy K. Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793319723050,"sku":"9781324050988","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/fear-less-poetry-in-perilous-times-5298002.jpg?v=1762150824"},{"product_id":"life-on-mars","title":"Life on Mars","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e* Poet Laureate of the United States *\u003cbr\u003e* A\u003c\/i\u003e New York Times\u003ci\u003e Notable Book of 2011 and\u003c\/i\u003e New York Times Book Review \u003ci\u003eEditors' Choice *\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e* A\u003c\/i\u003e New Yorker, Library Journal \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e Publishers Weekly \u003ci\u003eBest Book of the Year *\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNew poetry by the award-winning poet Tracy K. Smith, whose \"lyric brilliance and political impulses never falter\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review) \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself \u003cbr\u003eTo lift you past the rungs of your crib. What \u003cbr\u003eWould your life say if it could talk? \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e --from \"No Fly Zone\" \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, \u003ci\u003eLife on Mars \u003c\/i\u003eimagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like \"love\" and \"illness\" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. With this remarkable third collection, Smith establishes herself among the best poets of her generation.","brand":"Tracy K. Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793319854122,"sku":"9781555975845","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/life-on-mars-6399243.jpg?v=1762150824"},{"product_id":"wade-in-the-water-poems","title":"Wade in the Water: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eShortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEven the men in black armor, the ones\u003cbr\u003eJangling handcuffs and keys, what else \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAre they so buffered against, if not love's blade\u003cbr\u003eSizing up the heart's familiar meat? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWe watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat.\u003cbr\u003eLove: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLove: naked almost in the everlasting street, \u003cbr\u003eSkirt lifted by a different kind of breeze. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--from \"Unrest in Baton Rouge\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eWade in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice--inquisitive, lyrical, and wry--turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence. Here, private utterance becomes part of a larger choral arrangement as the collection widens to include erasures of \u003ci\u003eThe Declaration of Independence\u003c\/i\u003e and the correspondence between slave owners, a found poem comprised of evidence of corporate pollution and accounts of near-death experiences, a sequence of letters written by African Americans enlisted in the Civil War, and the survivors' reports of recent immigrants and refugees. \u003ci\u003eWade in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e is a potent and luminous book by one of America's essential poets.","brand":"Tracy K. Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793320247338,"sku":"9781555978365","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/wade-in-the-water-poems-6787755.jpg?v=1762150823"},{"product_id":"such-color-new-and-selected-poems","title":"Such Color: New and Selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Tracy K. Smith's poetry is an awakening itself.\" --\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCelebrated for its extraordinary intelligence and exhilarating range, the poetry of Tracy K. Smith opens up vast questions. \u003ci\u003eSuch Color: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e, her first career-spanning volume, traces an increasingly audacious commitment to exploring the unknowable, the immense mysteries of existence. Each of Smith's four collections moves farther outward: when one seems to reach the limits of desire and the body, the next investigates the very sweep of history; when one encounters death and the outer reaches of space, the next bears witness to violence against language and people from across time and delves into the rescuing possibilities of the everlasting. Smith's signature voice, whether in elegy or praise or outrage, insists upon vibrancy and hope, even--and especially--in moments of inconceivable travesty and grief.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch Color\u003c\/i\u003e collects the best poems from Smith's award-winning books and culminates in thirty pages of brilliant, excoriating new poems. These new works confront America's historical and contemporary racism and injustices, while they also rise toward the registers of the ecstatic, the rapturous, and the sacred--urging us toward love as a resistance to everything that impedes it. This magnificent retrospective affirms Smith's place as one of the twenty-first century's most treasured poets.","brand":"Tracy K. Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793320640554,"sku":"9781644450963","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/such-color-new-and-selected-poems-1491328.jpg?v=1762150822"},{"product_id":"bodys-question-poems","title":"Body's Question: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe debut collection by the Poet Laureate of the United States\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e* Winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e *\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou are pure appetite. I am pure\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAppetite. You are a phantom\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn that far-off city where daylight\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eClimbs cathedral walls, stone by stolen stone.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e --from \"Self-Portrait as the Letter Y\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Body's Question\u003c\/i\u003e by Tracy K. Smith received the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African-American poet, selected by Kevin Young. Confronting loss, historical intersections with race and family, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood, Smith gathers courage and direction from the many disparate selves encountered in these poems, until, as she writes, \"I was anyone I wanted to be.\"","brand":"Tracy K Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793321099306,"sku":"9781555973919","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/bodys-question-poems-7060945.jpg?v=1762150761"},{"product_id":"american-sonnets-for-my-past-and-future-assassin","title":"American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin","description":"\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNamed a Best American Poetry Book of the 21st Century (So Far) by \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eA powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America's most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eLighthead\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Sonnets that reckon with Donald Trump's America.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered--the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning.","brand":"Terrance Hayes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793321590826,"sku":"9780143133186","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/american-sonnets-for-my-past-and-future-assassin-9133681.jpg?v=1762150761"},{"product_id":"lighthead-poems-national-book-award-winner","title":"Lighthead: Poems (National Book Award Winner)","description":"\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2010 National Book Award for Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eWatch for the new collection of poetry from Terrance Hayes, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin\u003c\/i\u003e, coming in June of 2018\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In his fourth collection, Terrance Hayes investigates how we construct experience. With one foot firmly grounded in the everyday and the other hovering in the air, his poems braid dream and reality into a poetry that is both dark and buoyant. Cultural icons as diverse as Fela Kuti, Harriet Tubman, and Wallace Stevens appear with meditations on desire and history. We see Hayes testing the line between story and song in a series of stunning poems inspired by the Pecha Kucha, a Japanese presenta­tion format. This innovative collection presents the light- headedness of a mind trying to pull against gravity and time. Fueled by an imagination that enlightens, delights, and ignites, \u003ci\u003eLighthead\u003c\/i\u003e leaves us illuminated and scorched.","brand":"Terrance Hayes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793321754666,"sku":"9780143116967","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/lighthead-poems-national-book-award-winner-1004484.jpg?v=1762150760"},{"product_id":"wind-in-a-box","title":"Wind in a Box","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe third collection of poetry from the author of \u003ci\u003eLighthead\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the 2010 National Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eWatch for the new collection of poetry from Terrance Hayes, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin\u003c\/i\u003e, coming in June of 2018\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Terrance Hayes is an elegant and adventurous writer with disarming humor, grace, tenderness, and brilliant turns of phrase. He is very much interested in what it means to be an artist and a black man. In his first collection, \u003cb\u003eMuscular Music\u003c\/b\u003e, he took the reader through a living library of cultural icons, from Shaft and Fat Albert to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. His second collection, Hip Logic, continued these explorations of popular culture, fatherhood, cultural heritage, and loss. \u003cb\u003eWind in a Box\u003c\/b\u003e, Hayes's resonant new collection, continues his interest in how traditions (of poetry and culture alike) can be simultaneously upended and embraced. The struggle for freedom (the wind) within containment (the box) is the unifying motif as Hayes explores how identity is shaped by race, heritage, and spirituality. This new book displays not only what the \u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e calls the range of a \"bold virtuoso,\" but also the imaginative fervor of a poet in love with poetry.","brand":"Terrance Hayes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793322147882,"sku":"9780143036869","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/wind-in-a-box-3668054.jpg?v=1762150760"},{"product_id":"wicked-enchantment-selected-poems","title":"Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST--\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA voice for justice, anti-racism, and equality--here is the greatest and most powerful work of the people's poet, Wanda Coleman. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eColeman was a beat-up, broke, and Black woman who wrote with anger, humor, and clarity. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWicked Enchantment: Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is a selection of 130 of her poems, edited and introduced by Terrance Hayes. Rejected by the elites during her lifetime, here's what people are saying now: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--\u003cb\u003eOne of the year's best! \"These poems are wildly fun and inventive . . . and frequently hilarious; they seem to cover every human experience and emotion.\"--\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--Winner, California Independent Bookseller Alliance 'Golden Poppy' Book Award 2020 \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e--\"Required Reading\" \u003ci\u003eBustle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--\"One of the greatest poets ever to come out of L.A.\" \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e--One of the year's best! \"Fantastically entertaining and deeply engaging...potent distillations of creative rage, social critique, and subversive wit.\"--\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e--\"Her work pushes us to confront injustice with as much candor as she did.\"--\u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA self-made writer from Black Los Angeles, Wanda Coleman made art while living every day with racism, poverty, violence. Her triumph is in words that endure. It's time for Coleman's courageous, impassioned, inspiring, one-of-a-kind voice to reach readers everywhere.","brand":"Wanda Coleman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793322410026,"sku":"9781574232370","price":25.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/wicked-enchantment-selected-poems-6136344.jpg?v=1762150760"},{"product_id":"hip-logic","title":"Hip Logic","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe second collection of poetry from the author of \u003ci\u003eLighthead\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the 2010 National Book Award \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWatch for the new collection of poetry from Terrance Hayes, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin\u003c\/i\u003e, coming in June of 2018 \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Terrance Hayes is a dazzlingly original poet, interested in adventurous explorations of subject and form. His new work, \u003ci\u003eHip Logic\u003c\/i\u003e, is full of poetic tributes to the likes of Paul Robeson, Big Bird, Balthus, and Mr. T, as well as poems based on the anagram principle of words within a word. Throughout, Hayes's verse dances in a kind of homemade music box, with notes that range from tender to erudite, associative to narrative, humorous to political. \u003ci\u003eHip Logic\u003c\/i\u003e does much to capture the nuances of contemporary male African American identity and confirms Hayes's reputation as one of the most compelling new voices in American poetry.","brand":"Terrance Hayes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793322475562,"sku":"9780142001394","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/hip-logic-7524818.jpg?v=1762150760"},{"product_id":"black-nature-four-centuries-of-african-american-nature-poetry","title":"Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Nature\u003c\/i\u003e is the first anthology to focus on nature writing by African American poets, a genre that until now has not commonly been counted as one in which African American poets have participated. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBlack poets have a long tradition of incorporating treatments of the natural world into their work, but it is often read as political, historical, or protest poetry--anything but nature poetry. This is particularly true when the definition of what constitutes nature writing is limited to work about the pastoral or the wild. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCamille T. Dungy has selected 180 poems from 93 poets that provide unique perspectives on American social and literary history to broaden our concept of nature poetry and African American poetics. This collection features major writers such as Phillis Wheatley, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, Wanda Coleman, Natasha Trethewey, and Melvin B. Tolson as well as newer talents such as Douglas Kearney, Major Jackson, and Janice Harrington. Included are poets writing out of slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century African American poetic movements. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Nature\u003c\/i\u003e brings to the fore a neglected and vital means of considering poetry by African Americans and nature-related poetry as a whole. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA Friends Fund Publication.","brand":"University of Georgia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793322606634,"sku":"9780820332772","price":126.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/black-nature-four-centuries-of-african-american-nature-poetry-9758944.jpg?v=1762150760"},{"product_id":"how-to-be-drawn","title":"How to Be Drawn","description":"\u003cb\u003eA finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eHow to Be Drawn\u003c\/i\u003e, his daring fifth collection, Terrance Hayes explores how we see and are seen. While many of these poems bear the clearest imprint yet of Hayes's background as a visual artist, they do not strive to describe art so much as inhabit it. Thus, one poem contemplates the principle of blind contour drawing while others are inspired by maps, graphs, and assorted artists. The formal and emotional versatilities that distinguish Hayes's award-winning poetry are unified by existential focus. Simultaneously complex and transparent, urgent and composed, \u003ci\u003e How to Be Drawn\u003c\/i\u003e is a mesmerizing achievement.","brand":"Terrance Hayes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793322672170,"sku":"9780143126881","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/how-to-be-drawn-3359551.jpg?v=1762150760"},{"product_id":"selected-works-of-audre-lorde","title":"Selected Works of Audre Lorde","description":"\u003cp\u003eSelf-described \"black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet\" Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, and one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. This essential reader showcases her indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies in twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems--selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender, Roxane Gay.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong the essays included here are: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"I Am Your Sister\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eExcerpts from the American Book Award-winning \u003cem\u003eA Burst of Light\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe poems are drawn from Lorde's nine volumes, including \u003cem\u003eThe Black Unicorn\u003c\/em\u003e and National Book Award finalist \u003cem\u003eFrom a Land Where Other People Live\u003c\/em\u003e. Among them are: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"Martha\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"A Litany for Survival\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"Sister Outsider\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\"Making Love to Concrete\"\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Audre Lorde","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43793324933162,"sku":"9781324004615","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/selected-works-of-audre-lorde-1096628.jpg?v=1762150707"}],"url":"https:\/\/thepoetryshop.com\/collections\/african-american-black.oembed","provider":"The Poetry Shop LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}